Training treats for 11 week old puppy

[Noobs]

I have a friend who adopted a 10-week old Cocker Spaniel about a week ago. She told me she wanted to "pick my brain" about training. I don't know yet what she needs, whether it's some puppy behavior she's trying to adjust, or if she just wants to train general stuff. Nor do I know what she's feeding her right now.

My question is - not knowing any of the above, can anyone still give me a recommendation of what kind of training treats to use? This is going to be the first dog I help train besides Murphy, and she's just a puppy, so I don't want to feed her the wrong training treats. Should I just start with her kibble? How can I "up" the value - and with what - if she doesn't respond to the kibble?

I'm recommending that when I see the pup that my friend doesn't feed her before I come over. But how long can you withhold food from a puppy without it being harmful?

By the way, I am so excited to help my friend out. When she adopted her I started worrying straightaway about her possibly training her with the wrong methods. So this will be a good opportunity to spread the word about positive training.

[Zeldacorgi]

For my puppy, I use her kibble and chicken. I boil boneless chicken breast for 20 minutes, then shred it up. My dog goes nuts for chicken.

[Noobs]

My default is usually chicken or cheese, but the reason I'm asking is - will giving her chicken be too much protein for her daily needs?

[josie1918]

Surely they aren't going to treat that much are they? If it is shredded up in very small pieces and the dog is given it in reasonable ammounts, I don't think it would be a problem. Small puppy, small ammount of treat. As long as they don't go crazy with treating (1/2 the breast) I think it should be just fine.

[Noobs]

All right, just making sure.

I am of course going to recommend they give her less for her meals to make up for the training treats.

Thanks!

[Zeldacorgi]

One chicken breast can last us for about a month. We portion it out and freeze it. By tearing off really tiny pieces, you can make it stretch. Your friend can also use her dog's meals as training treats as well. That way she doesn't have to worry about over feeding.

[Noobs]

Definitely planning on using kibble - I just needed something of higher value in case she wants to train on "drop" or "leave it".

[Zeldacorgi]

Definitely planning on using kibble - I just needed something of higher value in case she wants to train on "drop" or "leave it".

When teaching the basic command, I used kibble. When we upped the anti with socks (Zelda's favorite thing to steal right now), we used the chicken.

[Wes]

I'm using boiled chicken and (*not* the healthiest, but he loves them) Bil-Jac Small Dog training treats with Sampson currently. He didn't care for Rosie's string cheese, which is usually my go-to training treat.